What is "art"? (cartoons, illusions...)

Amber Larson, CC Liu, and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; the artist Saara (Arkiharha)

Saara (Arkiharha) pondering art and free expression in Finland (Weekday-Illusion)

 

The fun Finnish cartoonist, devi, and graphic artist noticed our coverage. Saara is an obscure but prolific talent. We love her work, which can be found at many outlets like such as Arkiharha and such as Weekday-Illusion (our nod to awkward beauty pageant contestant Miss South Carolina).
 
She is expressing herself in her work and in a letter to us:

 

"Susse" (Saara/Arkiharha/flickr)

"Wow, it's crazy to find a post full of my pictures and comics! Nice analysis, too. Maybe I kinda succeeded to pass on my thoughts in a visual way, because you get the idea from most of them -- even when they are written in Finnish!"
 
See Wisdom Quarterly coverage here: My cartoon ART is your perception

REPLY: Saara, send in art you are eager for the world to see, like your beautiful sketches of the Buddha. We would be overjoyed to feature more.

 

Comic vignettes as art "Kuva" (Saara/Arkiharha/flickr)

If you have "class" you know a bottle of "fine" wine and classical string instruments like a Stratavarious are the only things to sip or listen to. But you're wrong. Science says you're wrong. So surely when you add that only oil on canvas can be art and not no people pleasing cartoony comics, you're wrong, too. Don't tell us. We like classical. Tell it to science:

 

The way to get people to better enjoy craapy fermented grape juice that sells for thousands of dollars is to say it sells for more. Just a better bottle and a price change, or serving it with an elegant story of its venerable origins, its pedigree, is enough to make it "taste" better. How classy of study participants.

Can comics and webcam colors be called art?

fMRI scans prove bad alcohol actually tastes better when it's two-buck-chuck krup is said to be something more expensive and classy. Expensive wine tastes better. Let's call it "neuromarketing." Marketers have known about this effect for years regarding other foods. Before they started loading fruit juices with added flavorants (cynically called "natural flavors" not because they're natural but because they synthetically mimic something "natural" rather than something artificial) and artificial colorants.

My doggy, my doggy...oh, you've come back! "Sarjis 12.8"  (Saara/Arkiharha/flickr)

 

Vegan Food Fest, Los Angeles

Flavorless red colors make things taste better. Blindfolded we might not be able to tell a difference or say which drink is what fruit. We use color as a clue, and it works. The flavor of dull tasting juice is brightened just by brightening its color. Such is the illusion we live in and the hypnotic states we fall into every other moment.

If we would meditate, we could emerge and be dehypnotized.

Hungry ghost, psychic ("Bobb")

But we love our illusions, delusions, and dreams. And we would directly-personally-verifiably find that we are (w)holistic beings, not mind (intangible processes)/body (senses) possessing spirits like it seems.

 

Today a study is making headlines saying that an old Stradavarius violin sounds no better than a modern one. In fact, if one believes this study, the modern one sounds better. More musicians prefer it. (But maybe they are voting for the one they think is the Strad which is the one they fear the study would find inferior?)

The Distortions

It's all how we look at the world we are creating each and every without realizing what we're choosing. Art can sensitize and teach us as we clear our mental perception of the distortions/perversions (Wisdom Quarterly). "Hiljattain päivitetty" (Saara/Arkiharha).

Audio Test: Can we tell the difference between expensive and overpriced instruments?

Pussy Riot to be freed early

Wisdom Quarterly; Freepussyriot.org

Pussy Riot supporters everywhere don balaclava masks (msnbcmedia.msn.com)

  

Nadya was previous missing (Guardian)

Pussy Riot is an anonymous Russian feminist performance art group formed in October 2011. 

Through peaceful public performances that voice how basic rights are under threat in Russia today, while expressing the values and principles of gender equality, democracy (self rule), freedom from religious oppression, and freedom of expression that are contained in the Russia's Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the CEDAW Convention.

Pussy Riot supporters (scpr.org)

Members were serving a harsh sentence on charges of “hooliganism” for their one-minute performance on Feb. 21, 2012 in a priests-only section of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The investigator’s report claimed the performance was an act of "religious hatred." The intention of the performance was actually to draw attention to the special relationship between Pres. Putin and the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. There was also a punk "prayer" to the Madonna, the Goddess or feminine divine, to drive Putin away.  

Amnesty was just announced that will free the members early -- as well as freeing the Greenpeace demonstrators arrested on false charges for a peaceful action to call attention to drilling for oil in ecologically sensitive area previously uncontaminated by the petroleum industry.

Early release

Two early release possibilities for both Masha and Nadya

RAPSI reports that the court that sentenced two Pussy Riot members to prison for committing hooliganism in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior overlooked possible grounds for mitigating...

Masha's mother heads to Nizhny Novgorod + Nadia's husband heads to Krasnoyarsk

RAPSI reports that Nadya or Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina are subject to a recently approved presidential amnesty and may be freed before the New Year, attorney Irina Khrunova told RAPSI on Wednesday....

Freepussyriot.org advocates for release along with these supporting organizations: Wisdom Quarterly, The Voice Project, The Voice Project, Amnesty International, Austrian Green Party, European Women’s Lobby, Free Muse, Human Rights Watch, Index of Censorship, PEN International, Russia’s Human Rights Council, Russie-Libertés, Riot Grrrl Berlin, Shatter Japan...

The C-Word Monologues (video)

Wisdom Quarterly; Eve Ensler (eveensler.org), Krista Tippett (OnBeing.org, 11-14-13)

Buddhist Eve Ensler has helped women all over the world tell the stories of their lives through the stories of their bodies. Her play, The Vagina Monologues, has become a global force in the face of violence against women and girls. She herself also had a violent childhood. And it turns out that she herself was like so many of us Western women, obsessed with our bodies and yet not inhabiting them -- without even knowing we were not inhabiting them. Until she got a wake up call from that unspeakable C-word, cancer.

• A Second Wind in Life: Inhabiting the body after cancer
• LISTEN (Radio/Podcast) | Learn more about the show
• V Day, global movement to end violence against females
• The "gift" of brain cancer: brief TEDtalk by branding guru Stacey Kramer is three minutes, inspirational, and has punch.
  

"Ode to Failure" (short film)

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly and Tamara Levitt (BeginWithin.ca)

Written, illustrated, produced by Tamara Levitt with audio recorded by Peter Willis, digital painting by Natalia Shevcun and Tamara Levitt

 

BeginWithinTV

Imagine a short film that involved themes of acceptance, compassion, and self-awareness. How lovely to share an "Ode to Failure" with all who strive, those who have fallen, those who have yet to fall. Who among us will be getting up again? Worldly success, meditative success, ego accomplishments, selfless accomplishments, there are many things to move toward energetically. Gratitude can follow failure, just as expectations are likely to be followed by resentments. We try and we try, muscling it rather than enjoying effortful-ease (sthirasukha, strong-flexibility, soft-strength) all the time forgetting that Happiness Doesn't Come from Headstands.